More than 65 people were injured and almost 170 people arrested in central Paris on Saturday after violent clashes between police and “yellow vest” protesters, in a third weekend of nationwide demonstrations against high living costs.
Police fired tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon in battles with protesters around the Arc de Triomphe near the Champs-Elysees avenue and clashes were reported elsewhere across the city centre as well as in other towns across the country.
Police said they had arrested 169 people and some are concerned that violent far-right and far-left groups were infiltrating the “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) movement, a spontaneous grassroots rebellion against the struggle many French face to make ends meet.
For three weeks, protesters have blocked roads across France, posing one of the largest and most sustained challenges Emmanuel Macron has faced in his 18-month-old presidency.
Sixty-five people, including 11 members of the security forces, have been injured in the capital, Paris police said.
“We are attached to dialogue, but also respect for the law,” Edouard Philippe told reporters. “I am shocked by the attacks on the symbols of France.”
The skirmishes in Paris broke out early on Saturday, with rioters and peaceful protesters mixed together after authorities cordoned off the Champs-Elysees, forcing them into adjacent streets.
Demonstrators put up barricades in the surrounding areas, smashed some car windows and set alight dozens of vehicles, including a police car. A restaurant in the vicinity was also set ablaze.
Several hundred yellow vests, who have no leader and have largely organised themselves online, sat down around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe, singing La Marseillaise, France’s national anthem, and chanting, “Macron Resign!”
On the facade of the towering 19th-century arch, protesters scrawled in big black letters: “The yellow vests will triumph.”
Some protesters were later seen on top of the arch.
Clashes also took place in other cities and towns including Nantes in the west, Toulouse and Tarbes in the southwest, Puy-en-Velay in the centre of the country, Charleville Mezieres in the northeast and Avignon in the southeast.
MACRON STANDS FIRM
Along the Champs-Elysees, which was cordoned off, peaceful protesters held up a slogan reading, “Macron, stop treating us like idiots!”
The president, who is at the G20 leaders summit in Argentina, said on Tuesday he understood the anger felt by voters outside France’s big cities over the squeeze that fuel prices have put on households, but insisted he would not be bounced into changing policy by “thugs”.
Philippe said there were 5,500 protesters in Paris and a combined 36,000 elsewhere in France. Police unions reported 582 road blockages.
Some of the protesters expressed concern over the clashes.
“What message do the yellow vests want to pass today? That we set France on fire, or find solutions? I find this (violence) absurd,” Jacline Mouraud, a prominent activist within the yellow vests movement, told BFM television.
But assistant teacher Sandrine Lemoussu, 45, who came from Burgundy to protest, told Reuters that people had had enough.
“The people are in revolt,” she said. “The anger is rising more and more, and the president despises the French. We aren’t here to smash things, but the people have had enough.”
One retiree protester said: “The government is not listening. Revolution cannot happen without violence.”
Many on the outskirts of smaller provincial towns and villages have expressed anger, underlining the gap between metropolitan elites and working class voters that has boosted anti-establishment politics across the Western world.
“Mr Macron wrote a book called Revolution. He was prophetic because it is what he has managed to launch, but not the revolution he sought,” Far-left La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Melenchon told reporters ahead of a protest in Marseille.
The yellow vests, who enjoy widespread public support, get their name from the high-visibility jackets all motorists in France must carry in their vehicles.
The protests have caught Macron off-guard just as he was trying to counter a fall in his popularity rating to 30 percent. His unyielding response has exposed him to charges of being out of touch with ordinary people.